The .NES file format (specifically, it's a 16-byte header) is public, invented by Marat Fayzullin, as the video discusses. Anything (commercial or open-source) can use the format; it's essentially public domain.

There is absolutely no way to prove in a court of law that Nintendo "downloaded a ROM from the Internet" and used it in their product. They may have dumped a cartridge themselves, or used a .bin they had laying around (we know for a fact they have an archive of all their game development details, which certainly includes source code) and stuck a .NES header on the front of it (maybe for ease of use of testing).

Marat's speculative statement, re: the head being detached from the body, is certainly a valid point (the bigger the company, the more likely this happens), but again, you can't just assume that's the case -- you have to prove it, and there's no actual way to prove it in this case.

If you think Nintendo doesn't run tons of their processes (esp. commercial release) through their Legal team for verification that everything was done by the book, you'd be kidding yourself. In other words: if they did use a ROM they found off the Internet, Legal knows the above, thus they're in the clear either way. They're not exactly a "stupid" company given their size and stature.

It's been known for a while that Virtual Console uses the iNES container invented by the warez scene. It's just as likely that Nintendo dumped an authentic Super Mario Bros. Game Pak and then wrapped it in an iNES header the same way anyone else would.

When I clicked the video, I heard "Did you know that the ROM matches", until I realized that it was "Did you know that the wrong mattress" from a 3 minute and 41 second advertisement for Purple Mattress Protector, which keeps pausing on its own when it fails to start. I know you didn't intentionally rickroll me because the video title is "Did Nintendo download a Mario ROM and sell it back to us? - Here's A Thing", but I've been noticing that somehow my Firefox browser is having a hard time loading some YouTube ads lately. It depends more on the ad than on the video it's connected to: some ads consistently load on the first or second try, whereas other ads consistently take half a dozen clicks or more on the Play icon in the middle of the ad's poster image. Is Google trying to drive users toward YouTube Red by reducing the reliability of its ad-supported service?

I guess that if one of the Virtual Console games have "Disk Dude" in the header it could be a somewhat likely proof that it was downloaded. But since Nintendo are the copyright holders of these games I don't see how downloading would be illegal for them?

The legality of Nintendo downloading and reselling their own ROM seems like a minor concern and lesser point to me, and unfortunately it's ultimately a distraction.

Nintendo was prompted by, and somewhat leveraged, the existing emulation scene, turning it into a source of profit. Even that isn't wrong. The hypocrisy is that they had previously and continue to portray ("unauthorized") emulation as wholly illegitimate.

I've been noticing that somehow my Firefox browser is having a hard time loading some YouTube ads lately. It depends more on the ad than on the video it's connected to: some ads consistently load on the first or second try, whereas other ads consistently take half a dozen clicks or more on the Play icon in the middle of the ad's poster image. Is Google trying to drive users toward YouTube Red by reducing the reliability of its ad-supported service?

There is absolutely no way to prove in a court of law that Nintendo "downloaded a ROM from the Internet" and used it in their product. They may have dumped a cartridge themselves [...] and stuck a .NES header on the front of it (maybe for ease of use of testing).

Sure, but I think it's 90% safe to say they downloaded a ROM. If they didn't then they added the iNES header themselves, and they had to download doccuments from what they consider illegitimate pirates in order to have information about how the iNES header works, so it's just as ironic/pathetic in my opinion.

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(we know for a fact they have an archive of all their game development details, which certainly includes source code)

I find it pretty ironic that Nintendo resorted to using a pirate file format in official releases, regardless of whether the ROM image itself comes from the web or their own archives. If I had to guess, I'd say this is because the emulator they use wasn't created in house from the ground up, but was instead based on something that already used iNES files.

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